The Planners and the Planned

ByAlan Ryan

ABSTRACT: Much of what makes Hayek so controversial can be found in The
Road to Serfdom, the theoretical basis of which is provided by The CounterRevolution of Science. The first book, a polemic against the “planning
mentality,” did not defend complete laissez faire, but argued that planning disrupts
the coordination between prices and supply and demand; that effective planning is
thus impossible in a modern industrial society; that it is coercive; and, of course,
that it leads to totalitarianism. In The Counter-Revolution of Science,
Hayek argued that the “planning mentality” is the result of the hubristic attempt to
reconstruct society along scientific lines. But the likes of Edward Bellamy
envisioned a planned but free society, while John Dewey contrasted planning,
where people collectively choose their goals, against a planned economy that is
coercively imposed. Hayek’s welcome strictures against a scientistic society and an
overly ambitious social science aside, his binary approach to intellectual history
distorted through oversimplification.